Sh!t My John Kasich Says—Insane in the Membrane

This is what John Kasich has to say about this election. It is the most partisan rant we’ve seen him give this election so far. And just about every word that John Kasich says shows a man who is delusional. Seriously, and pathetically delusional.

“In my entire political life I have never seen the kind of negative, smearing, lying stuff that these Democrats have done and brought on the people of this state.”

That’s a pretty remarkable thing for Kasich to say given what he saw in 1996. In 1996, Kasich’s Democratic congressional opponent implied that Kasich was in a homosexual relationship with his chief-of-staff simply because Kasich shared a residence with him while he was in D.C. when Congress was in session to save money. The rumor started by that candidate was roundly (and properly) denounced local and national by the media and groups like the Stonewall Union as inappropriate “gay baiting.” And yet, John Kasich says a campaign in 2010 that has done nothing more than focus on his resume is worse than that?!?

I pray that someone in the media (besides me) calls Kasich on this nonsense. Is Kasich really suggesting that a campaign that focused on Kasich’s once touted role (in friendlier forums) on Wall $treet is a smear worse than the NAMBLA-focus in the final weeks of the Ken Blackwell campaign?

Is it smear when the teachers’ unions, correctly, and in proper context, simply inform their members that Kasich has promised to “break the backs” of those unions? Kasich apparently thinks so, as he’s insisted they take a full page ad apologizing to him if he wins:

John Kasich then alleged that every ORP candidate has been seriously smeared. He claimed, by example, that Mike DeWine had been smeared in response to an ad of DeWine’s involving his daughter. Like most of Kasich’s reckless partisan allegations, Kasich gave no specifics.

Kasich failed to note that DeWine’s ad featuring his daughter was, in reality, itself a smearing attack ad accusing incumbent Richard Cordray of engaging in lawsuits that hurts jobs and small businesses. A claim the DeWine campaign had to concede it couldn’t cite a single case Cordray has been involved in that did that.

Kasich says it’s unfair to suggest that he’ll slash state funding to treat mental illnesses in the speech, yet he never actually says he told the woman it wasn’t true. What is true that such cuts are going to be necessary if Kasich is going to do what he promised he’d do: balance the budget while majorly cutting taxes at the same time. If Kasich has a plan otherwise, then where is it?

Kasich continued on his tear:

He instead issued ominous warnings about how the Democratic Party may try to steal the election next Tuesday.

“They will try to buy this election from top to bottom,” he said. “They are going to use the policies of fear, every left-wing organizer in this country, to come in here and scare our people and try to drag people away from the polls. They don’t want you to vote. They are going to tell a lot of lies.”

John Kasich said that while sharing the stage with Rob Portman—the recipient of more special interest money than most incumbents in the Senate. Mike DeWine is largely self-funding his race for Attorney General. And Jon Husted and Josh Mandel? Give me a break, Congressman! Where’s your outrage at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads? No where.

Fox News is practically trying to buy you the Governorship, for Christ’s sake. You’ve been on the network 60 times since announcing your candidacy. You have maxed out donations from Rupert Murdoch and his wife. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have given you national primetime media to do fundraising pitches. Hell, even an out-of-state Richard Scaife-owned newspaper endorsed you, and your campaign is now touting that as some sort of “achievement.” A paper that exists for conservative causes even though it loses $20 to $30 million a year (so much for fiscal conservatism and the free market.)

And who’s going to try to keep people from voting, Congressman? Democrats?

Guess you never read this story in the Columbus Dispatch last month in which the Vice-Chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party’s Executive Committee filed a federal lawsuit… to prevent people from voting early because Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties, which are viewed as more Democratic, send absentee application to every registered voter in their county when more rural (and Republican) counties do not (although they could.) A federal judge promptly dismissed their lawsuit.

Where’s been the Democratic lawsuit or the Democratic “bouncers” literally trying to “drag people away from the polls?”

John Kasich is the quintessential politician—he decries the “negative smears” of the opposition (real or imagined) right before he launches into a barnburner of lies and slanders of those opponents. Then, he refuses to take any questions from the media about his smears.

Will the Ohio media stand up to Kasich and call him out on his smears today? Not as long as Kasich plays the denial of access game. That’s why Kasich really went into his shell. He knows no reporter would dare be shut out the final week of the campaign by calling him out, so he’s dangling the prospect of now rare press access in the final week of a national political story to keep them quiet. It’s a cynical press media strategy that so far only CNN isn’t willing to go along with him.